Restaurant and cafe table tops in Stepney

Yes. Stepney is on the patch, and the postcodes we work here are E1. It is worked on our east London run, along with the rest of Tower Hamlets. Enforcement zones rarely accept a trade van unloading stone as an exemption, so this gets sorted before the date is confirmed rather than argued about afterwards. A table order comes off the van as a stack of frames and a pallet of bases, and both of those need somewhere to stand before either is moved. One stop, and the count is proved before we leave. Everything that involves you happens in your kitchen, so there is nothing to visit and nothing to collect.

A boiler in a cupboard on the kitchen wall is normal in this stock, and its position is fixed by its flue. Trade in this stock is a single shopfront with a small room behind it, so an order is a dozen pieces rather than fifty, and that changes what is worth doing rather than how it is done. Small rooms want small pieces and steady bases. A room can be out of square in both directions at once, so the wall that leans is also the wall that runs downhill, and one scribe cannot answer both. None of that is scribed against on a table, since it stands clear of every wall, so the awkwardness moves from the back edge to the floor and the base. The base carries the weight and the floor carries the base.

A hall radiator or a coat hook at shoulder height takes a hundred millimetres off the usable width, and a hundred millimetres is often the entire margin. A table order is many small pieces rather than one long one, so the route decides how many trips the delivery takes rather than how big anything can be. Tops travel upright in a frame, faces apart. Visitor permits are issued to the household rather than to the trade, so the ones the day needs come from the customer and are best in hand the week before. The bases are the heavy half of the delivery, so the pallet is dealt with first while there are still hands free for it. A shared forecourt is booked rather than chanced.

Not to any real extent, and it would be easy to imply it was. What the research on this patch actually lists is worktop templating, worktop replacement and worktop installation. It describes the kitchens on this patch, not the work that goes into them. Same quoting, same cutting, same fitting as anywhere else on the patch. The junction between the original room and the extension is the point to watch, because the two floors rarely sit at the same height. A room opening in a second phase is worth naming now, while the material is still on the ground and a match is a telephone call. Orders are counted in pieces and never in metres. Extension kitchens are usually specified long before they are buildable, so the run lengths on the drawing and the run lengths in the room are different numbers. Where an operator changes hands the bases usually stay, so a refit becomes a resurface and the saving comes from what is already bolted down. Ordered as a set, so the set matches.

Where the return runs into a wall that is out of square, the corner is templated as the angle it really is rather than as ninety degrees. What decides the cut list here is the seating plan rather than the room shape, and one repeated table size nests far better than six one-offs. A set is laid out together before anything is wrapped. Material sits between £110 and £550 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted line by line.

Plaster thickness varies over the height of a wall, so the line at worktop height is not the line at skirting level, and the units decide which one matters. A column, a boxed duct or a fixed bench in a dining room is designed around with a shape cut to suit rather than notched on site. A shallow room decides the diameter early. Bring in one base, or send the maker’s plate drawing, and tell us the table count including any spares you want to hold back. Access is arranged through a managing agent or a scheme office rather than with the household directly, so a date gets confirmed once in writing and moving it costs a fortnight. The length of the lease is a legitimate reason to specify differently, and nobody should be talked into a decade of surface for five years of trading. Decisions made remotely still need a physical sample.

On a porous stone the grooved area is sealed with the rest, and it gets wet more than anything else. The alternative stands on the surface, so the choice is losing worktop permanently or only while you are draining. Machining is permanent. If a later kitchen moves the sink, the grooves stay where they were cut. Blockwork with a hard render that has been patched over decades looks modern and behaves nothing like it. Table tops sit outside all of that, because a top touches no wall at all and every one of its edges is profiled, polished and on show. The base plate settles the drilling before the stone is cut.

Topping a seal up is a wipe-on job with a cloth. Quartz carries resin, so a hot pan wants a trivet, while granite and sintered stone will take one without complaint. Granite tells you when the seal wants topping up: water stops beading on the surface and starts darkening it instead. Ceiling heights dropped after the war, so there is less wall between the worktop and the wall units than in anything older. A whole slab still gets reserved, because a dozen matching tops is the entire point of ordering them together. A basement is for prep and not for storing stone.

If you want the old top kept for a garage or a utility, say so and it stays on site. Take the old tops off yourself if you would rather, and the quote simply carries one line fewer. Old laminate is light and awkward rather than heavy, so it is usually the easier half of the day. A bay suspension carries a fee and a notice period, and the notice period is the part that catches people out when a date moves. Where the standing is short the pieces are counted off at the tail lift against the plan rather than checked once they are already inside. Where the van cannot wait, the room has to be ready.

Floors and units are protected before anything comes through the door. Most breakages happen on the carry, which is why the route is walked and measured before anything comes off the van. Damage found on the bench never leaves the workshop, and damage on the carry is remade under the same cover. Where the hall runs straight through to the back the piece can be walked in flat, and it is only the two door frames that have to be cleared. The bases go in first and are stood where they belong, so nothing heavy is dragged across a floor that has already been finished. A dozen pieces is a dozen carries, not one lift.